Shanna Barnicle, the science teacher and department chair at Rice Memorial High School, is a fun-loving, biking teacher from Florida who loves to take students outside. 

She loves animals and thought she would be a veterinarian until she realized that some aspects of a vet’s job didn’t line up with her areas of interest. She has many fish for classroom pets and a dog and cat of her own (she likes the cat better).

Question: How long have you been teaching at Rice? Have you ever taught anywhere else?

Answer: I’ve taught at Rice for four years. This is my fourth year. I was at Randolph Union High School for two years before that, which is over by Barre. And then I was at Essex High School for five years before that. I also taught in New Jersey for a couple of years, and I taught in the Peace Corps, and I was in Vilnius Lithuania. 

Question: Can you tell me a little bit about that time in Lithuania?

Answer: Yep. When I graduated from college, my degree was in international relations, and I got a job teaching English at the Physics High School in Vilnius, Lithuania, right after the Soviet Union pulled out, and I taught high school there for two years… It was very fun.

Question: How does Vermont compare to all those other places?

Answer: Vermont? Vermont is my favorite state hands down. Yeah, I love it here because of the people. I’m very much of the political affiliation that’s very popular in Vermont. I’m very liberal, and I love the people who are here. I love the state itself. I think it’s beautiful and so clean and so safe. And we’ve got mountains, and I really love the outdoors. So we’ve got mountains, and we’ve got rivers, and we’ve got lakes that you can swim in. I grew up in Florida where you couldn’t go in any rivers or lakes because alligators would be in there, and so you had to be super careful. you could go in the ocean. But then there’s where the sharks are. So, you know what I’m saying, like to have water that you can just go swim in at any time, and it’s fine is so fun. I love skiing, too. I love skiing, and I love just the climate. I just really like having four seasons. I just love it here. I’ll never live anywhere else.

Question: Have you always been drawn to the sciences?

Answer: I always loved Biology in high school, loved biology in college, still love biology. Do you want to know why? Because I feel like science is a study of what actually is.I love English too, and I love literature and things like that. But it’s like people created literature, people created foreign languages, people created history. It’s all just so people focused, whereas science is about what actually is out there, and it’s not just us. I love chemistry, physics, too. I like studying what’s actually out there. You know?

Question: How would you describe your teaching method?

Answer: I love hands-on. I love creating a connection with the kids. As you can tell, I’m constantly talking to the kids. I’ve got you guys sitting in a U so that we’re all looking at each other, so that we can talk and interact a lot during the class. Because, as you can imagine, I have studied biology for 12 years, so it’s not the subject itself is not as interesting to me as the people that are there to learn the subject. Like you guys are the fun part of my job. I love hands-on activities. I love labs. I like getting you out of your seats, doing stuff. I love going outside, doing field studies, things like that.

Question: What are your favorite outside-of-school hobbies or pastimes?

Answer: I love to ski. I started skiing when I was 50, so I have not skied for very long, but I love it. When I say ski, I mean alpine ski, downhill ski. I’ve Nordic skied for a long time, which I also love. I coached Nordic skiing at Essex High School. I love all kinds of skiing, Nordic skiing, alpine skiing, all of it. I’m not very good at skiing, but I still really enjoy the sensation. I love to hike. I love biking. I have a bike, and this past summer, my husband and I cycled all the way across Vermont. I love long distance cycling. I love swimming. I love, love, love running. I’m a big fan of running. It’s funny, because what I do in my job and what I do in my free time is the same thing. You know, field studies, checking out birds.

Question: What made you choose Rice?

Answer: I lived here for 20 years before coming to Rice. But what made me choose Rice was, I was at Essex High School, and they had 16 high school teachers, and I really wanted to teach AP Biology,…but at Essex High School, they had so many teachers that were ahead of me in line to teach that class, and Rice said I could teach Biology. I went to Randolph first, because Randolph said, ‘Oh, you can teach AP Biology’. To teach AP Biology, you have to have a masters degree and you have to have taught for five years, like you have to have certain certifications. But at Essex, everybody had that. And so that wasn’t special. When I went to Randolph, I taught AP Biology for… two years…, and I did really well there, like the kids did really well on the exam. And so then Rice was like, ‘Oh, you can come here’. I wanted to live in Chittenden County and not have to drive so far, and so that’s why I came here. To teach AP Biology to you when you take it, not if, but when, right?

Question: What is your favorite quality or aspect of Rice?

Answer: I love the way, like I always refer to the Rice family, I have found that to be true. I love how everybody knows everybody else, and everybody does seem to kind of be looking out for everybody else at the school.

Question: What is your favorite or funniest Rice memory?

Answer: I think what I love the most is the ‘make a baby’ lab that we do, and you’re going to do it next week. That’s why it’s coming up. We have this lab in biology where the kids actually have to combine chromosomes with another kid, and they make a baby. And the lab is set up so that these babies are just so ugly. And it is hilarious when people have their baby and they draw it and they put it on a bulletin board. It just makes me laugh every year. And everybody always thinks they’re gonna make a cute baby, but it’s set up in such a way… that your baby always looks really bad. So it’s just funny to see the “make a baby”s after they make them. It is very funny. You’ll see when you make your baby, yeah.

Question: What would be your ideal vacation?

Answer: I’m doing it, this summer. I want to go to the Colorado trail and hike the whole 500-mile Colorado trail. And my husband and I have tickets. Mary’s going too. I bought tickets, and I’ve got backpacks. I’ve got everything I need. I’m supposed to leave June 25 and we’re gonna spend the entire summer doing that… I’m super excited. It’s a 500-mile trail that goes across the whole state.